National News

Also: Mark Twain's advice to little girls; Benjamin Lytal on Vladimir Nabokov; and author and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has died.

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There have been several signs in recent days that job growth eased in March. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics adds its data. Economists expect to hear that the unemployment rate stayed at 7.7 percent, while employers added a relatively modest 200,000 jobs to their payrolls.

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Also: Some cancer clinics turn Medicare patients away, blaming sequester cuts; two men associated with supremacist gang sought in Colorado prison chief's slaying; and Japan unveils a new economic stimulus package.

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South Korea's defense minister says the missile could have been moved for testing or for drills, and that there's no sign of military mobilizations that could suggest preparations for a full-scale conflict.

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Global outplacement firm Challenger, Grey & Christmas reported that employers cut 49,000 jobs in March, down 11 percent from February. Despite the month to month decline, job cuts for the first quarter were their highest since 2011. Retailers led the way with over 16,000 cuts.

CEO John Challenger joins Marketplace's Mark Garrison to explain which sectors had the biggest cuts and where there is potential for job growth.

Lawmakers in the state where a gunman killed 20 children and six educators at an elementary school last December have responded with legislation that bans assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines and requires background checks for purchasers.

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A report in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine says the U.S. spends more on treating dementia than any other disease including cancer and heart disease.

Annual spending already tops $100 billion for direct treatment; tack on $50-100 billion for informal care like the cost of leaving your job to care for a parent. That works out to $50,000 per person. And those costs are expected to double by 2040.

Dementia carves away the ability of people to care for themselves. Rand economist Michael Hurd, who authored the study, says it’s no mystery why we spend more treating this disease than any other.

"The big cost is the cost for nursing homes, and nursing homes cost a lot," says Hurd, who adds that nursing homes and in-home care makes up at least 75 percent of all spending.

About 4 million Americans suffer from some form of dementia today. By 2040, that number is expected to reach 9 million.

"The message is we need to do some science," says Hurd.

Drug companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer are trying, but IHS analyst Gustav Ando says so far, no dice.

"Company executives will kind of sit there and wonder, ‘well, if Pfizer couldn’t do this, or if Lilly couldn’t do this, then why on earth should we enter this area?’" he says.

Several drugs are in early trials, but analysts say viability is likely years away. Meanwhile, the financial -- and emotional -- costs continue to grow.

A report in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine says the U.S. spends more on treating dementia than any other disease including cancer and heart disease.

Annual spending already tops $100 billion for direct treatment; tack on $50-100 billion for informal care like the cost of leaving your job to care for a parent. That works out to $50,000 per person. And those costs are expected to double by 2040.

Dementia carves away the ability of people to care for themselves. Rand economist Michael Hurd, who authored the study, says it’s no mystery why we spend more treating this disease than any other.

"The big cost is the cost for nursing homes, and nursing homes cost a lot," says Hurd, who adds that nursing homes and in-home care makes up at least 75 percent of all spending.

About 4 million Americans suffer from some form of dementia today. By 2040, that number is expected to reach 9 million.

"The message is we need to do some science," says Hurd.

Drug companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer are trying, but IHS analyst Gustav Ando says so far, no dice.

"Company executives will kind of sit there and wonder, ‘well, if Pfizer couldn’t do this, or if Lilly couldn’t do this, then why on earth should we enter this area?’" he says.

Several drugs are in early trials, but analysts say viability is likely years away. Meanwhile, the financial -- and emotional -- costs continue to grow.

Japan is fed up with years of deflation and a sluggish economy, and now its central bank is getting aggressive. Today, the Bank of Japan launched a sweeping bond-buying program to pump money into the economy. Traders liked what they saw, but do the Japanese people think it will work?

BBC Tokyo correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes joined Marketplace's Mark Garrison to explain the plan and why the central bank is backing it.

Jamaica has some of the highest rates for electricity in the Caribbean. And with unemployment at 12 percent, many people in the poorest communities have devised ways of getting electricity for free, though illegally. Jamaica's main electricity supplier has lost millions of dollars over the years through this theft. Now they have finally decided to crack down by cutting whole communities off the grid.

On the streets of Jones Town -- a poor community in Kingston -- Omar, one of its residents, showed me how to steal electricity. It's something he was taught to do as a child.

"You see those two wires there, one is live the other is ground, so you get a line, stick a bamboo stick that can reach from the ground, or you can stand on and you hook it up and it goes into your yard," says Omar.

He says he would prefer legal jobs, but as long as Jamaican electricity prices stay high, he'll always find work, no matter how many communities are disconnected.

The average consumer pays around $75 a month -- which for some is a third of their salary. The electricity company, however, has had enough of electricity theft and whole communities have now been completely cut off. Many worry that cutting the power off could lead to violence. The disconnection of this entire neighborhood has seen an increased security presence to make sure it doesn't flare up, but there are entire generations who have never paid in parts of the city.

JPS is the sole distributor of electricity in the country. Last year alone, 15 percent of their total output was stolen, $30 million worth.

But Audrey Williams, a communications officer for JPS, says it's not only poor people who steal electricity.

"It spans the range, we are talking about every type of residential customer, business customers," says Williams.

Literature and art help us explore the mysteries of the human mind. But understanding the minute circuitries of the human brain takes science, technology, and according to the Obama Administration, quite a bit of federal money.

This week the president unveiled his $100 million BRAIN initative -- short for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. Modeled after the Human Genome Project, in which the goverment worked with science foundations and private enterprises to map human DNA, BRAIN funding is aimed at understanding, treating and eliminating diseases such as Alzheimer's.

"If you look at the history of success of large scientific enterprises, unless there is a central focus on the basic science, which government is really the best and most effective supporter of, then the project isnt really going to get off the ground," says Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, which will disburse the research money.

Dr. Collins has high hopes for the initiative, which include memory enhancement and brain-computer interfacing "for people who have impairments, like a quadroplegic, where you want to be able to give them the ability to move an extremity just by thinking about it," he says.

To hear more about the experimental technology that Dr. Collins thinks may get us there, click on the audio player above.

They should have called it the "Cooper Communicator" or maybe "Marty's Mobile."  Forty years ago, Motorola engineer Martin Cooper invented the cellphone to the dismay of a competing team at AT&T's Bell Labs.

Chris Ziegler, senior editor at the tech publication The Verge, joins Marketplace Tech host David Brancaccio to discuss the rivalry between these two companies as they raced to release the cellphone.

Batteries can be expensive and the industrial batteries that store solar power for use when the sun goes down are especially pricey. But a promising technology, which use a non-toxic, water-based solution with salt, could make storing electricity for the grid much cheaper.

This week, Aquion Energy of Pittsburgh, who is working to mass-produce these batteries, reached a major funding milestone with an investment from Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

"These would be very big and they would improve the performance and efficiency of the whole power grid," says Aquion CEO Scott Pearson, who adds that the batteries could also be used for a residential home or on or off grid cellphone towers.

The Aqueous Hybrid Ion batteries are cheap in bulk but not that useful in miniature sizes, so don't expect them powering individual cellphones or flashlights.

North Korea has moved a missile with "considerable range" to its east coast, South Korea's defense minister said Thursday. He added, however, that there are no signs that Pyongyang is preparing for a full-scale conflict.

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Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is expected to sign a wide-ranging bill Thursday that includes sweeping new restrictions on weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines. It was in response to last year's deadly school shooting in Newtown.

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Cairo is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan to help pull Egypt out of its deep economic crisis. The government subsidizes wheat and fuel but is running out of money to purchase these crucial imports, and Egyptians are feeling the pinch.

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A Princeton University alumna advised young women studying at her alma mater to find husbands now and not wait. Susan Patton's letter set off a heated discussion, but she stands by her words.

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More than half of the nation's pipelines were built before 1970. In fact, ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline, which burst Friday in Mayflower, Ark., is 65 years old. According to federal statistics, pipelines have on average 280 significant spills a year. Most aren't big enough to make headlines.

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Robert Mueller has been the U.S. government's indispensable man when it comes to national security. When his 10-year term as FBI director expired, the Obama administration asked Congress for an unprecedented two-year extension. But now, the clock is ticking on finding his successor.

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Rumors abound of a major shakeup in the works for U.S. food aid programs. The U.S. would give aid groups money to buy food wherever they could get it cheapest and quickest, rather than shipping abroad commodities bought in the U.S. Already, groups that profit from the current system are mounting a fight.

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